come from, nor how the mist was broken for me to get to you. I
heard you callin', and there's nothin' kept me back/'

" They've been long weary days since you went from me, an'
I've not heeded your counsel, nor deserved your trust in me/' he
told her. " See how I'm old now, with the grey hairs in my head
and beard, and you younger than I ever knew you, with your
girl's face and your tender unworn hands."

" I have no reckoning in my mind of what is past, nor that
which is to be," said she, " but all I know is there's no spaci of
time here, nor in our world, nor any world hereafter. There be no
separation for us, no beginnin' and no end—we'm cleft together
you an' I, like the stars to the sky."

Then he said—" They whisper amongst themselves I'm mad,
my love, my reason's gone and there's danger in my eyes. I can
feel the blackness creepin' on me, and when it comes for good I'll
neither see nor feel you—and there'll be nothin' left but desolation
and despair."

He shuddered as a cloud passed over the face of the moon, and
it seemed to him he was a child in her arms, crying for comfort.

" Never fear, when the black fit seizes you I'll hold you as I
hold you now," she soothed him, " When you can neither see
nor hear, an' you're fightin' with yourself, I'll be at your side,
strivin' for you."

He threw back his head and watched her as she stood, white
against the sky with a smile on her lips.

" You're like an angel," he said, " standing at the gates of
Heaven before the birth of Christ. It's Christmas, and they're
singin' the hymn in Lanoc Church."

" Fifty years or a thousand years it's all the same," said Janet,
" our comin' here together is the proof of it."

" You'll never leave me again, then ? " he asked.

" Never no more."

He knelt and kissed her footprint in the frost.

" Tell me, is there a God ? "

He looked into her eyes and read the truth.

They stood for a minute and gazed at each other, seeing them-
selves as they never would on earth. She saw a man, bent and
worn, with wild unkempt hair and weary eyes; he saw a girl,
young and fearless, with the moonlight on her face.

" Good night, my mother, my beauty, my sweet."

" Good night, my love, my baby, my son/'

Then the mist came between them, and hid them from one
another,

*****
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